Volumetric PIV measurement for capturing the port flow characteristics within annular gas turbine combustors

© 2020, The Author(s). Abstract: The three-dimensional flows within a full featured, unmodified annular gas turbine combustor have been investigated using a scanned stereoscopic PIV measurement technique. Volumetric measurements have been achieved by rigidly translating a stereoscopic PIV system to scan measurements around the combustor, permitting reconstruction of volumetric single-point statistics. Delivering the measurements in this way allows the measurement of larger volumes than are accessible using techniques relying upon high depth of field imaging. The shallow depth of field achieved in the stereoscopic configuration furthermore permits measurements in close proximity to highly detailed geometry. The measurements performed have then been used to assess the performance of the combustor port flows, which are central to the emissions performance and temperature/velocity profile at turbine inlet. Substantially differing performance was observed in the primary ports with circumferential position, which was found to influence the behaviour of the second secondary port jets. The measurements indicated that the interaction between the primary and secondary jets occurred due to variations in the external boundary conditions imposed by the annular passages in which the combustor is located. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Quantifying ageing effects in thermochromic liquid crystal thermography as applied to transient convective heat transfer experiments

Thermochromic liquid crystal (TLC) thermography is used in transient heat transfer experiments to determine distributions of convective heat transfer coefficient (HTC) inside models of internally cooled gas turbine engine components. As these components become more geometrically complex, the application of TLC thermography becomes increasingly challenging and additional sources of experimental uncertainty grow to be significant. The present work quantifies the uncertainties introduced by TLC ageing using a state-of-the-art imaging system and a new postprocessing methodology that are optimised for the intensity-based method of analysing TLC data. A coating comprising multiple TLCs with different active temperature ranges is considered and subject to 33 repeated thermal cycles. These repeated cycles are shown to increase the random and systematic uncertainties in the TLC measurements, resulting in consequent increases in the uncertainties associated with calculated HTCs. Increases in systematic uncertainty are caused by reflectance in the measured wavelength band moving to different temperatures, while increases in random uncertainty are related to changes in individual crystals or crystal clusters with ageing. Approaches to calibrating out increases in systematic uncertainty are proposed and recommended, but increases in random uncertainty will always persist unless the TLC coating is removed and reapplied

Impact of flow unsteadiness on steady-state gas-path stagnation temperature measurements

Steady-state stagnation temperature probes are used during gas turbine engine testing as a means of characterising turbomachinery component performance. The probes are located in the high-velocity gas-path, where temperature recovery and heat transfer effects cause a shortfall between the measured temperature and the flow stagnation temperature. To improve accuracy, the measurement shortfall is corrected post-test using data acquired at representative Mach numbers in a steady aerodynamic calibration facility. However, probes installed in engines are typically subject to unsteady flows, which are characterised by periodic variations in Mach number and temperature caused by the wakes shed from upstream blades. The present work examines the impact of this periodic unsteadiness on stagnation temperature measurements by translating probes between jets with dissimilar Mach numbers. For conventional Kiel probes in unsteady flows, a greater temperature measurement shortfall is recorded compared to equivalent steady flows, which is related to greater conductive heat loss from the temperature sensor. This result is important for the application of post-test corrections, since an incorrect value will be applied using steady calibration data. A new probe design with low susceptibility to conductive heat losses is therefore developed, which is shown to deliver the same performance in both steady and unsteady flows. Measurements from this device can successfully be corrected using steady aerodynamic calibration data, resulting in improved stagnation temperature accuracy compared to conventional probe designs. This is essential for resolving in-engine component performance to better than +/-0.5% across all component pressure ratios

Measurements of fuel thickness for prefilming atomisers at elevated pressure

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd This work describes an experimental study of the fuel flows on the prefilmer of an aerospace gas turbine airblast atomiser at elevated pressure. The work identifies the physics leading to contradictory findings within the literature. This concerns an important atomisation boundary condition, whether the thickness of the fuel film on the prefilming surface influences the downstream drop size distribution. Analysis of the experimental data shows that fuel film thickness becomes uncorrelated with the downstream drop size if surface tension forces dominate inertia at the prefilmer tip. Fuel film thickness however provides the initial length scale for primary atomization if fuel inertia exceeds surface tension forces. It is the high inertial conditions that are associated with gas turbine operation, but the low inertial conditions that are readily achievable at laboratory scale through momentum flux scaling. Additionally, a detailed statistical description of the fuel flow has been provided for the atomiser tested. This reveals the importance of upstream hydrodynamic and aerodynamic boundary conditions on the probability of a ligament forming. Surprisingly, operating pressure is shown to have limited effect on the probability of ligament formation, a significant advantage for future modelling of the primary atomization processes

Heat transfer and residence time in lean direct injection fuel galleries

In radially staged lean direct injection systems, pilot fuel plays an important role in cooling the mains fuel gallery in regions of the flight envelope where the mains fuel is stagnant. Under these conditions, managing wetted wall temperatures is vital to avoid the formation of carbonaceous particles, which become deposited on the surfaces of the fuel gallery and can lead to a deterioration in system performance. The prediction of wetted wall temperatures therefore represents an important aspect of the injector design phase. Such predictions are often based on injector thermal models, which tend to rely on the application of convective boundary conditions from empirical heat transfer correlations. The use of these correlations leads to questions over the accuracy of predicted wetted wall temperatures and therefore uncertainty over the probability of deposition. This paper seeks to improve on the current situation by applying the inverse conduction technique to determine heat transfer coefficients specific to the pilot fuel gallery. These heat transfer coefficients are crucial for determining wetted wall temperatures in the pilot and mains fuel galleries and principally govern the risk of deposition in the stagnant mains. The pilot heat transfer data is further examined alongside measurements of the pilot residence time distribution, which together control the risk of pilot deposition at low fuel flow rates. Both the heat transfer and residence time measurements demonstrate the opportunity for future fuel gallery design refinement and provide the supporting data to facilitate this.</div

Tomographic PIV in the near field of a swirl-stabilised fuel injector

The isothermal flow fields of injectors have undergone several computational and experimental investigations using point and planar measurement techniques,. Within the swirl induced vortex breakdown region it is only LES that has been able to predict fully the presence of a three dimensional helical vortex structure for a particular injector, and in certain conditions (no central fuel jet), a precessing vortex core. These structures can be elucidated from point and planar measurements and favorable comparisons of velocity statistics between experiment and LES predictions strengthen these findings. However, volumetric, 3-component measurement of velocity data has not been widely available to provide conclusive evidence of the exact three dimensional nature of the vortex structures that exist. An experimental setup utilizing time resolved tomographic PIV on a water flow rig is described in this paper. This is used to provide as high-quality aerodynamic study as possible of a single stream radially-fed air swirl gaseous fuel injector. The level of accuracy of the tomographic PIV technique is demonstrated by calculating the divergence of the velocity field as well as validating the results against a comprehensive 2 and 3 component standard PIV velocity database and other measurement techniques and predictions. Structure identification methods have been employed to visualise and understand the complex flow topology within the near field of the injector. The change in topology with and without the stabilising central jet is further investigated and agrees with findings of planar PIV results. While the velocity error associated with the tomo-PIV results is higher than the planar results the data agree well within the identified uncertainty bounds and are complimentary in understanding the flow field structure. Thus a full volumetric aerodynamic survey is available for the first time on this isothermal flow case